A leader nurtures and sustains a culture that supports evidence-informed teaching and learning.
I once heard a stand-up comedian speak of his boss, who stated that “leadership is making everyone do what I want because I can.” I can’t express how much I disagree. My reaction was validated by the audience laughter that followed the statement. Aristotle stated that “we are the sum of our behaviours – excellence therefore is not a single act but a habit.” Additionally, a leader has a responsibility to act. There is a Buddhist saying that reinforces the notion: “to know and not to do is not to know at all.”
Leadership begins with the identification of a desirable goal, followed by the utilization of all resources to achieve that goal. The tricky part, of course, is the management of human resources towards that end, as there are sometimes temperaments that need to be massaged. Just as successful sports teams are comprised of different role players, other teams benefit from diversity among their membership. A leader is skilled in orchestrating the contributions of an assortment of individuals towards a specified goal.
Leadership begins with the identification of a desirable goal, followed by the utilization of all resources to achieve that goal. The tricky part, of course, is the management of human resources towards that end, as there are sometimes temperaments that need to be massaged. Just as successful sports teams are comprised of different role players, other teams benefit from diversity among their membership. A leader is skilled in orchestrating the contributions of an assortment of individuals towards a specified goal.
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One of the more unifying initiatives undertaken in my Hutterite colony schools was the adoption of the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Literacy Assessment program. Given that we had 17 remotely located schools, the cost was significant. I arranged a sharing schedule of the assessment kits so that 2 schools could share the same resources. It was still expensive, but allowed for meaningful support to our schools - and buy-in from our teachers. Assessments were undertaken in the fall and again in the spring to gauge student growth. A sample spreadsheet is linked below to illustrate how student literacy growth was monitored.
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Occasionally, during supervision of intern teachers, I've found it necessary to clearly identify short-comings observed in their work, and craft a remedial plan to correct them. On one such occasion it was discovered the intern had let some aspects of the KSA's slip after a fairly successful four week start. The plan for improvement was jointly developed by the school principal, mentor teacher, intern and myself. I'm pleased to say the intern responded as I would expect of any professional educator and succeeded in meeting the high standard expected. I'm delighted that the intern gained employment and at last report is doing very well.
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Alberta Education updated the Teaching Quality Standard for teacher certification effective in September 2019. In preparation for such a transition, I led my spring 2019 cohort of intern teachers in work-shopping the new teaching competencies. The province identified a variety of means by which a teacher could demonstrate they were meeting each competency. There are many, many more things teachers can do however, and we added to the list to create a longer list of "look-fors" that would indicate a teacher is addressing each of the competencies.
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